Colorado's local egg farms have once again helped ensure that those less fortunate won't go hungry during the Easter holiday this year, as they recently donated 306,720 eggs to Feeding Colorado's five food banks.

The Food Bank of the Rockies in Denver — a Feeding Colorado member — had its mobile pantry set up early on April 14 at Dick's Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, where they distributed a portion of the recently donated eggs, along with other food items, to about 350 families.

This marks the 10th consecutive year that the Colorado Egg Producers (CEP) Association-member farms have partnered with the Feeding Colorado food banks to help those in need for the Easter holiday, and CEP is elated to have again contributed to the efforts of Feeding Colorado and the Good Egg Project — an initiative to end childhood hunger through the American Egg Board.

Hickman Family Farms, Morning Fresh Farms, NestFresh, Opal Foods and Sparboe Farms are the local operations that produced and donated the farm-fresh eggs to Feeding Colorado's food banks for Easter this year.

"Colorado Egg Producers have been a tremendous supporter of the Food Bank of the Rockies and our sister Feeding Colorado food banks," said Kevin Seggelke, president and CEO of Food Bank of the Rockies. "We are delighted to partner with them for this event, so families have eggs this Easter. All five Feeding Colorado food banks are extremely grateful for the egg donations CEP provides hungry families all year long."

During the 10 years that the local CEP-member farms have partnered with Feeding Colorado, the total in Easter donations has amounted to about 3 million eggs.

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Although, when factoring in their regular weekly and monthly donations, Colorado's egg farms donate an estimated 1 million eggs per year to local food banks, and have now donated about 10 million eggs all together during the past decade.

"The farms that make up the Colorado Egg Producers Association take seriously the fact that one in seven Coloradans don't have enough food to meet their basic needs, and we strive to assist those families — not only during Easter, but year-round," said CEP Executive Director Bill Scebbi.

During the mobile-pantry event, Food Bank of the Rockies and CEP staff were joined by the Easter Bunny and CEP's mascot, Eggbert.

Personnel and equipment from Commerce City Emergency Responders were also on hand, as was the Churn and Burn food truck, serving up free breakfast burritos.

Additionally, this Easter Egg-stravaganza included prizes, with two lucky kids being randomly selected to win new bicycles, courtesy of the local nonprofit Recycle Bicycles, and each attendee also headed home with an Easter egg-dyeing kit. ❖